The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American manufacturer of repeating firearms and

ammunition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other we ...

. The firm was established in 1866 by

Oliver Winchester Oliver Fisher Winchester (November 30, 1810 – December 11, 1880) was an American businessman and politician, best known as being the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Birth and marriage He was the son of Samuel Winchester a ...

and was located in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...

. The firm went into

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in c ...

in 1931 and was bought by the Western Cartridge Company, a forerunner of the Olin Corporation. The Winchester brand name is still owned by the Olin Corporation, which makes ammunition under that name. The Winchester name is also used under

license A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

for

firearm A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions). The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...

s produced by two subsidiaries of the

Herstal Group , type = Public , traded_as = , industry = Firearms , fate = , predecessor = Fabrique NationaleBrowning International , successor = , founded = , founder ...

– FN Herstal of Belgium and the Browning Arms Company of

Ogden, Utah Ogden is a city in and the county seat of Weber County, Utah, United States, approximately east of the Great Salt Lake and north of Salt Lake City. The population was 87,321 in 2020, according to the US Census Bureau, making it Utah's eighth ...

History

Early history

Predecessors

The ancestor of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company was the Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson partnership of Norwich, Connecticut (not to be confused with the famous Smith & Wesson Revolver Company founded later by the same men). Smith and Wesson acquired Lewis Jennings' improved version of inventor Walter Hunt's 1848 "Volition Repeating Rifle" and its caseless " Rocket Ball" ammunition, which had been produced in small numbers by Robbins & Lawrence of Windsor, Vermont. Jennings' rifle was a commercial failure, and Robbins & Lawrence ceased production in 1852.Taylor, Jim
''A Short History of the Levergun''
Smith designed a much-improved rifle based on Jennings' design, and the partners also hired away Robbins & Lawrence shop foreman

Benjamin Tyler Henry Benjamin Tyler Henry (March 22, 1821 – June 8, 1898) was an American gunsmith and manufacturer. He was the inventor of the Henry rifle, the first reliable lever-action repeating rifle. Henry was born in Claremont, New Hampshire in 1821. H ...

In 1855, the Smith and Wesson partnership, in order to manufacture what they called the "Volcanic" lever-action rifle and pistol, sought investors and incorporated as the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company. Its largest stockholder was clothing manufacturer

. The

Volcanic rifle The Volcanic Repeating Arms Company was an American company formed in 1855 by partners Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson to develop Walter Hunt's Rocket Ball ammunition and lever action mechanism. Volcanic made an improved version of the Rocket ...

had only limited success. The company moved to New Haven (without Smith or Wesson) in 1856, but by the end of that year, it became insolvent. Oliver Winchester and his partner John M. Davies purchased the bankrupt firm's assets from the remaining stockholders and reorganized it as the New Haven Arms Company in April 1857. After Smith's departure, Benjamin Henry continued to work with a Smith development project, the self-contained metallic rimfire cartridge, and perfected the much larger, more powerful

.44 Henry The .44 Henry, also known as the .44 Rimfire, the .44 Long Rimfire, or the 11x23mmR (11x23mm Rimmed) in Europe, is a rimfire rifle and handgun cartridge featuring a -long brass or copper case. The round has a total overall length of , with a ...

round. Henry also supervised a new rifle design based loosely on the Volcanic to use the new ammunition, retaining only the general form of the breech mechanism and the tubular magazine. This became the Henry rifle of 1860, which was manufactured by the New Haven Arms Company and used in considerable numbers by certain Union army units during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

. The Henry rifle ensured New Haven Arms' success, and together with the

Spencer rifle The Spencer repeating rifles and carbines were 19th-century American lever-action firearms invented by Christopher Spencer. The Spencer was the world's first military metallic-cartridge repeating rifle, and over 200,000 examples were manufacture ...

, established the lever-action repeater in the firearms market.

The Winchester rifle

US-CT(1891) p136 NEW HAVEN, WINCHESTER REPEATING ARMS COMPANY

Winchester Repeating Arms Company advertisement, 1898

In 1866, Benjamin Henry, angered over what he believed was inadequate compensation, attempted to have the Connecticut legislature award ownership of New Haven Arms to him.

, hastening back from Europe, forestalled the move and reorganized New Haven Arms yet again as the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Winchester had the basic design of the Henry rifle completely modified and improved to become the first Winchester rifle, the Model 1866, which fired the same .44 caliber rimfire cartridges as the Henry but had an improved magazine (with the addition of a loading gate on the right side of the receiver, invented by Winchester employee Nelson King) and, for the first time, a wooden forend. The Henry and the 1866 Winchester shared a unique double firing pin that struck the head of the rimfire cartridge in two places when the weapon was fired, increasing the chances that the fulminate in the hollow rim would ignite the 28 or so grains of black powder inside the case. Another extremely popular model was rolled out in 1873. The Model 1873 introduced the first Winchester center fire cartridge, the .44-40 WCF (Winchester Center Fire). These rifle families are commonly known as the "Gun That Won the West." The Model 1873 was followed by the Model 1876 (or "Centennial Model"), a larger version of the '73, which used the same toggle-link action and brass cartridge elevator used in the Henry. It was chambered for longer, more powerful cartridges such as

.45-60 WCF The .45-60 Winchester is a centerfire rifle cartridge intended for 19th-century big-game hunting. Nomenclature of the era indicated the .45-60 cartridge contained a diameter bullet with of black powder. Winchester Repeating Arms Company shor ...

, .45-75 WCF, and .50-95 WCF. The action was not long enough to allow Winchester to achieve their goal of producing a repeating rifle capable of handling the .45-70 Government cartridge; this would not happen until they began manufacture of the

Browning Browning may refer to: Arts and entertainment * The Browning, an American electronicore band * ''Browning'', a set of variations by the composer William Byrd Places * Browning, Georgia, USA * Browning, Illinois, USA * Browning, Missouri, ...

-designed Model 1886. Oliver Winchester died in December 1880; his son and successor,

William Wirt Winchester William Wirt Winchester (June 22, 1837 – March 7, 1881) was the treasurer of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, a position he held until his death in 1881. Family He was born on June 22, 1837, to Oliver Winchester and Jane Ellen Hope in Ba ...

, died of tuberculosis four months later. William Wirt Winchester's widow, Sarah Winchester, used her inheritance and income from the company to build what is now known as the

Winchester Mystery House The Winchester Mystery House is a mansion in San Jose, California, that was once the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester. The house became a tourist attraction nine months after Wi ...

. From 1883, John Browning worked in partnership with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company and designed a series of rifles and shotguns, most notably the Winchester Model 1885 Single Shot, Winchester Model 1887 lever-action shotgun, Model 1897 pump-action shotgun; and the lever-action Model 1886,

Model 1892 The Winchester Model 1892 was a lever-action repeating rifle designed by John Browning as a smaller, lighter version of his large-frame Model 1886, and which replaced the Model 1873 as the company's lever-action for pistol-caliber rounds such as ...

Model 1894 The Winchester Model 1894 rifle (also known as the Winchester 94 or Model 94) is a lever-action repeating rifle that became one of the most famous and popular hunting rifles of all time. It was designed by John Browning in 1894 and originally cha ...

and Model 1895 rifles. Several of these are still in production today through companies such as

, Rossi, Navy Arms, and others which have revived several of the discontinued models or produced reproductions.

20th-century developments

The turn of the twentieth century

The early years of the twentieth century found the Winchester Repeating Arms Company competing with new John Browning designs, manufactured under license by other firearm companies. The race to produce the first commercial self-loading rifle brought forth the .22 rimfire Winchester Model 1903 and later centerfire Model 1905, Model 1907, and Model 1910 rifles. Winchester engineers, after ten years of work, designed the

Model 1911 The M1911 (Colt 1911 or Colt Government) is a single-action, recoil-operated, semi-automatic pistol chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge. The pistol's formal U.S. military designation as of 1940 was ''Automatic Pistol, Caliber .45, M1911'' for th ...

to circumvent Browning's self-loading shotgun patents, prepared by the company's very own patent lawyers. One of Winchester's premier engineers, T.C. Johnson, was instrumental in the development of these self-loading firearms and went on to superintend the designs of Winchester's classic Model 1912, Model 52 and Model 54.

The First World War

The company was a major producer of the .303 Pattern 1914 Enfield rifle for the

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and the similar .30-06 M1917 Enfield rifle for the United States during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. Working at the Winchester plant during the war, Browning developed the final design of the

Browning Automatic Rifle The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) is a family of American automatic rifles and machine guns used by the United States and numerous other countries during the 20th century. The primary variant of the BAR series was the M1918, chambered for the ...

(BAR), of which it produced some 27,000. Browning and the Winchester engineers also developed the Browning .50 caliber machine gun during the war. The caliber .50 BMG (12.7 x 99 mm) ammunition for it was designed by the Winchester ballistic engineers. The commercial rights to these new Browning guns were owned by Colt.

Failure and recovery

During the war, Winchester had borrowed heavily to finance its massive expansion. With the return of peace, the company attempted to use its surplus production capacity and pay down its debt by trying to become a general manufacturer of consumer goods – everything from kitchen knives to roller skates to refrigerators, to be marketed through 'Winchester Stores'. They also merged with the Simmons Hardware Company. The Winchester and

Keen Kutter Keen Kutter® is an American privately-owned trademark of premium hardware, cutlery and outfitter goods for outdoor enthusiasts. The company, based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, designs, distributes and sells its products via company-owned catal ...

brands did business together during the 1920s, but in 1929, they agreed to separate and returned to their core businesses. The consumer goods strategy was a failure for Winchester, and the Great Depression put the final nail in the company's coffin. The Winchester Repeating Arms Company went into

in 1931 and was bought at a bankruptcy auction by the Olin family's Western Cartridge Company on December 22 of that year. Oliver Winchester's firm would maintain a nominal existence until 1935 when Western Cartridge merged with its subsidiary to form the Winchester-Western Company. In 1944, the firearms and ammunition operations would be reorganized as the Winchester-Western Division of

Olin Industries Olin Corporation is an American manufacturer of ammunition, chlorine, and sodium hydroxide. The company traces its roots to two companies, both founded in 1892: Franklin W. Olin's Equitable Powder Company and the Mathieson Alkali Works. Olin ch ...

. Western's First Vice-President (

John M. Olin John Merrill Olin (November 10, 1892 – September 8, 1982) was an American businessman. He was the son of Franklin W. Olin. Early life Born in Alton, Illinois, Olin graduated from Cornell University with a B.Sc. degree in chemistry and as a b ...

) was a sportsman and gun enthusiast, and he started at once to restore the Winchester brand to its former luster by concentrating on its classic models and updated versions thereof, with particular attention to quality and prestige. Olin personally pushed the deluxe Model 52 Sporter and the semi-custom Model 21 double-barreled shotgun. Winchester flourished, even during the later Depression.

The Second World War

The U.S. M1 carbine (technically not a carbine in the sense of a short version of a parent rifle) was designed at Winchester by an eight-man team including Edwin Pugsley, Bill Roemer, Marsh Williams, Fred Humiston, Cliff Warner, and Ralph Clarkson, although the popular press played up the role of ex-convict Williams. More M1 carbines were manufactured by Winchester and other firms than any other U.S. small arm of World War II. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, Winchester produced the

M1 Garand rifle The M1 Garand or M1 rifleOfficially designated as U.S. rifle, caliber .30, M1, later simply called Rifle, Caliber .30, M1, also called US Rifle, Cal. .30, M1 is a semi-automatic rifle that was the service rifle of the U.S Army during World ...

and post-war was the first civilian manufacturer of the M14 rifle.

Decline

By the 1960s, the rising cost of skilled labor was making it increasingly unprofitable to produce Winchester's classic designs, as they required considerable hand-work to finish. In particular, Winchester's flagship Model 12 pump shotgun and Model 70 bolt-action rifle with their machined forgings could no longer compete in price with Remington's cast-and-stamped 870 and 700. Accordingly, S. K. Janson formed a new Winchester design group to advance the use of "modern" engineering design methods and manufacturing principles in gun design. The result was a new line of guns that replaced most of the older products in 1963–1964. The immediate reaction of the shooting press and public was overwhelmingly negative: the popular verdict was that Winchester had sacrificed quality to the "cheapness experts," and Winchester was no longer considered to be a prestige brand, causing a marked loss of market share. To this day, gun collectors consider "post-64" Winchesters to be both less desirable and less valuable than their predecessors. In the early 1970s, the Olin Winchester-Western Division tried to diversify with at least two unsuccessful attempts. The first was an experimental indoor shooting range called Wingo in San Diego, California. This short-lived attempt had a strong tie to firearms and ammunition with exclusive guns, ammo, and target launching machines being produced. The flaw was to see it quickly profitable in a western city with too many competing outdoor activities. The second venture was trying to compete with Coleman Company in the camping and sporting goods market. "Trailblazer by Winchester" products included propane-fueled stoves and lanterns. They also produced tents and sleeping bags. These products struggled to compete with similar offerings from an established company founded in 1900. Labor costs continued to rise through the 1960s and '70s, and a prolonged and bitter strike in 1979–1980 ultimately convinced Olin that firearms could no longer be produced profitably in New Haven. In December 1980, the New Haven plant was sold to its employees, incorporated as the

U.S. Repeating Arms The U.S. Repeating Arms Company (USRAC) was an American manufacturer of firearms. It was established in 1981 and operated as an independent company until 1989, when it went bankrupt and was taken over by Fabrique Nationale Herstal. The company tr ...

Company, and granted a license to make Winchester arms. Olin retained the Winchester ammunition business. U.S. Repeating Arms itself went bankrupt in 1989. After bankruptcy, it was acquired by a French holding company, then sold to Belgian arms makers

Herstal Group , type = Public , traded_as = , industry = Firearms , fate = , predecessor = Fabrique NationaleBrowning International , successor = , founded = , founder ...

, which also owns gun makers Fabrique Nationale d'Herstal (FN) and Browning Arms Company. On January 16, 2006,

announced it was closing its

New Haven New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,023 ...

plant where Winchester rifles and shotguns had been produced for 140 years. Along with the closing of the plant, production of the Model 94 rifle (the descendant of the original Winchester rifle), Model 70 rifle, and Model 1300 shotgun were discontinued. The official press release sent out by U.S. Repeating Arms concerning the closure was released on January 17, 2006. The text is included below:

Recovery

On August 15, 2006, Olin Corporation, owner of the Winchester trademarks, announced that it had entered into a new license agreement with

to make Winchester brand rifles and shotguns, though not at the closed Winchester plant in New Haven. The production of Model 1885

falling block action A falling-block action (also known as a sliding-block or dropping-block action) is a single-shot firearm action in which a solid metal breechblock slides vertically in grooves cut into the breech of the weapon and is actuated by a lever. Descr ...

and Model 1886 lever-action rifles are produced under licensed agreement by

Miroku Corp. ( OSE7983 is a Japanese firearms manufacturer located in Nankoku, Kōchi Prefecture. Their products include shotguns produced for Browning Arms Company and rifles licensed by Winchester Firearms. In European markets, these products are sold ...

of Japan and imported to the United States by Browning. In 2008, Fabrique Nationale announced that it would produce Model 70 rifles at its plant in Columbia, South Carolina. In 2013, assembly was moved to Portugal. In the summer of 2010, Fabrique Nationale d'Herstal (FN) resumed production of the Winchester model 1894 and the evolution of the Winchester 1300, now called the Winchester SXP. A number of gun cleaning kits, Chinese folding knives, tools, an
other accessories
are also now sold under the Winchester trademark.

SXP shotgun recall

In April 2015, the company recalled several variants of its SXP-model 12-gauge shotguns that the company says may unintentionally fire while the action is being closed.

Ammunition

Winchester's success was founded on a cartridge, the

rimfire, and the Henry and 1866 rifles designed for it. Winchester was a leading designer of rifle ammunition throughout its existence and has been responsible for some of the most successful cartridges ever introduced, including the

.44-40 WCF The .44-40 Winchester, also known as .44 Winchester, .44 WCF (Winchester Center Fire), and .44 Largo (in Spanish-speaking countries) was introduced in 1873 by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. It was the first metallic centerfire cartridge ma ...

(Winchester Center Fire), the .30 WCF (.30-30), the .50 BMG, the

.270 Winchester The .270 Winchester is a rifle cartridge developed by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1923 and unveiled in 1925 as a chambering for their bolt-action Model 54The Complete Reloading Manual for the .270 Winchester, Loadbooks USA, Inc., 2004 ...

, the

.308 Winchester The .308 Winchester is a smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge widely used for hunting, target shooting, police, military, and personal protection applications globally. It is similar but not identical to the 7.62×51mm NATO ...

, the .243 Winchester, the .22 WMR (.22 Magnum), the

.300 Winchester Magnum The .300 Winchester Magnum (also known as .300 Win Mag or .300 WM) (7.62×67mmB, 7.62x66BR) is a belted, bottlenecked magnum rifle cartridge that was introduced by the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1963. The .300 Winchester Magnum is a m ...

and the .350 Legend. In North America the .30-30 is the best-selling hunting cartridge in history; and the .308 Winchester, the commercial version of the military

7.62×51mm NATO The 7.62×51mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 7.62 NATO) is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It is a standard for small arms among NATO countries. First developed in the 1950s, the cartridge had first been introduced in U.S. service fo ...

, is not far behind, and one of the most popular hunting cartridges in the world. Olin Corporation continues to manufacture Winchester ammunition (the cartridge business was not sold to

) in several lines including Super-X, Supreme and Supreme Elite, AA and Super Target shotshells, and Winchester Cowboy Loads revolver cartridges.

Presidents

(1857–1880). *

(1880–1881), son of Oliver Winchester and husband of Sarah Winchester. * William Converse (1881–1890), husband of Mary A. Pardee. * Thomas Grey Bennett (1890–1910), husband of Hannah Jane Winchester. * George E. Hodson (1910–1915), partner of Oliver in the company. * Winchester Bennett (1915–1918), son of Thomas Gray Bennett. * Thomas Grey Bennett (1918–1919), father of Winchester Bennett. * John Edward Otterson (1919–1924).

References

External links

Winchesterguns.com website
(Winchester firearms made by

Herstal Group , type = Public , traded_as = , industry = Firearms , fate = , predecessor = Fabrique NationaleBrowning International , successor = , founded = , founder ...

subsidiaries)
Winchester.com website
(Winchester ammunition made by the Olin Corporation)
Tribute to former Winchester employees (New Haven)
* {{Winchester Cartridges Firearms American companies established in 1866 Manufacturing companies established in 1866 American companies disestablished in 2006 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 2006 Companies based in New Haven, Connecticut Connecticut in the American Civil War Defunct firearms manufacturers Historic American Engineering Record in Connecticut Ammunition manufacturers 1866 establishments in Connecticut 2006 disestablishments in Connecticut Military in Connecticut Defunct manufacturing companies based in Connecticut

History

Early history

Predecessors

The Winchester rifle

20th-century developments

The turn of the twentieth century

The First World War

Failure and recovery

The Second World War

Decline

Recovery

SXP shotgun recall

Ammunition

Presidents

Archives

See also

References

Further reading

External links